A novice philosopher turned equestrian…

Fox

I know I go on about him a lot, and I natter away about how wonderful and lovely he is and how much I adore him. And you’re all sat there (apart from those of you who I know from college) thinking, “right, she loves this horse, but does he really exist?”

Well, I thought I’d give you the chance to meet the man himself. The handsome devil that he is. So here’s my boy.

He’s such a cutie. How can you not want to snuggle him? Bear in mind he won’t actually let anyone snuggle him properly…because that would mean touching, and he’s none too keen on that. Probably another reasonwe get on so well.

Anyways, I groomed him up today, got a whole load of dead hair out of his body and made him all shiny and pretty. I rode him too, and we went canter canter gallopy gallop around the outside of everyone else. Intentionally, I should add. We were riding a wheel you see, for the grand finale of our musical ride, and Fox and I are the outside edge of said wheel which means we have to go super fast to keep up with the line. He quite enjoyed that. Bless. Although we need to work on our brakes a little bit.

And then we had a lovely hose off. I say we, I hosed him and he stood there eyeing the hose in my hand suspiciously. He let it happen though, and even stood quietly while I smothered him in fly repellent. I had to spray it on a sponge and wipe it on, of course, because the slightest sound of spraying and he poos himself. And while some might say “just spray him anyway, he’ll get over it”, I’m not convinced he will. And I think it’s unfair to put a horse through something that clearly stresses them out that much. Yes it’s frustrating, yes it’s time consuming and yes sometimes it feels like he’s putting it on to test you and make you do double the work for a simple task. But at the end of it, he panics and is clearly distressed by things like sprays, and I for one do not want to be the cause of a horse’s distress. That’s the last thingI’d ever want. So I’m happy to take the long road. I get the job done, the horse is happy, and to be honest it really doesn’ttake that much more time or energy out of my day.

Which, coming from me, is quite remarkable. I’ve never been a very patient person. But somehow I’ve learned it. And for this horse, I’ve got all the time in the world.

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4 thoughts on “Fox”

You’re clearly smitten! And good for you for taking the extra effort to make sure Fox can be comfortable when getting his repellent. By the way, I once had a cat named Fox. He was smoke gray and I named him after Fox Mulder, the lead character on The X-Files. I like the name. 🙂